As the race for the White House continues, U.S. President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney are campaigning in key battleground states Friday.

President Obama is holding a rally in the eastern state of Virginia, while Romney has a campaign event in the western state of Nevada.

Public opinion polls show Obama leading Romney in Virginia and most of the other so-called swing states expected to decide the November 6 election.

The president has also pulled ahead of his rival in campaign funds, with nearly $89 million to spend in the campaign's final stretch compared to Romney's $50 million.

In an appeal to older voters, Obama is also speaking via satellite Friday to a meeting of AARP, a lobbying group for people aged 50 and older.

On Thursday, Romney worked to overcome recent blows to his campaign by promoting himself as the man to change Washington. Romney is trying to reverse damage done by a secretly-taped video that surfaced this week showing him saying that 47 percent of Americans, who he said will vote for Obama "no matter what," believe they are "victims" entitled to government support.

Seizing on President Obama's remarks in an interview Thursday that you cannot "change Washington from the inside" and "can only change it from the outside," Romney said he "can" and "will" change Washington and will "get the job done from the inside." He said "Republicans and Democrats will come together."

President Obama had said in an interview on U.S. Spanish-language network Univision that in a second term he would concentrate on engaging with the American people so that they can pressure lawmakers to move issues forward.

Many of the president's initiatives have been blocked by the Republican-dominated House of Representatives.